Disclosure: Argus Leader Media is a donor to South Dakota News Watch and News Director Cory Myers is on the group's board of directors.

A group of South Dakota journalists announced Tuesday they are starting a nonprofit to provide more in-depth coverage of topics across the state.

The South Dakota News Watch team brings decades of experience in the state’s two biggest print newsrooms, with three ex-Argus Leader editors and a former editor of the Rapid City Journal involved in the inception of the fledgling news service.

The group’s two paid staff members, Executive Director Maricarrol Kueter and investigative reporter Bart Pfankuch, aim to provide free news coverage that can be used by other media outlets in the state.

“Every newspaper in South Dakota, every radio station and every TV station, starting today, has a new investigative reporter on their staff,” Pfankuch said. “And that’s me.”

The organization was founded by former Argus publisher Randell Beck and former Argus editor Jack Marsh, who will remain unpaid and serve as co-chairs of a nine-member supervisory board.

The nonprofit’s website had already posted four pieces of content as of the Tuesday afternoon announcement, including two stories about the Custer State Park wildfire, a story about an ethanol railroad crash in 2015, as well as a welcome note from Beck and Marsh.

The two men came up with the idea for South Dakota News Watch together over coffee and spent three years preparing for the organization’s launch.

“This is a great day for journalism and the First Amendment, an important day for civil discourse and the free flow of ideas,” Marsh said. “A promising day for the future of our remarkable state.”

Newsrooms across the state have suffered through budget cuts and layoffs, with fewer resources and people to commit to coverage of the state, especially outside of Rapid City and Sioux Falls, the two biggest metro areas.

Founders of News Watch noticed growing interest from South Dakotans in more comprehensive reporting that tackles complex topics most newsrooms no longer cover.

"We are not here to push aside or replace what local media are doing,” Beck said. “In our complicated world, stories need to get deeper, farther and better to capture all the nuances.”

But he was also careful to point out that South Dakota News Watch is not a group of “angry former journalists,” and that it is not a response to newsroom layoffs. Instead, the nonprofit is modeled after nonprofit news groups such as ProPublica, which rely on donations to provide independent news coverage and support other outlets in their work.

“These are serious-minded people who just believe that the state is better with long-form journalism,” Beck said.

Kueter has a vision for the type of work she hopes South Dakota News Watch will accomplish, using an approach that provides extensive coverage of broad topics, with interactive data and other tools for readers to digest the information. South Dakota News Watch will also engage with the people it covers both during and after the reporting process, Kueter said.